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There is a growing cargo cult between what people belief is ecologically responsible behavior and what keeps waste low in a society. In my opinion this complex
by mxfh 11y ago
There is a growing cargo cult between what people belief is ecologically responsible behavior and what keeps waste low in a society.
In my opinion this complex consist part out of learned behavior decades ago, remainders of slightly masochist protestant life style ethics and prolonged exposure to green-washing.
Plastics are not bad by default compared to all other alternatives¹. Bad is a waste of energy and resources as is littering instead of a closed product life chain.
http://cascade.uoregon.edu/fall2012/expert/expert-article/ http://cascade.uoregon.edu/fall2012/expert/expert-article/
¹How many paper tissues and water+detergent is used at home for preparing a single orange compared to an efficient peeling processing line, that also hopefully doesn't discard the peels in a mixed waste disposal.
I would even guess a random pre-peeled orange might even have a higher chance of a smaller footprint in an life-cycle assessment, than a regular orange that has a higher chance of never never being sold or eaten after purchase.
- leereeves 11y agoThe downside of disposable plastics is that people often don't dispose of them carefully and they decompose very slowly. They're accumulating in the environment.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Grishnakh 11y agoI sometimes wonder how feasible or expensive it'd be to: 1) institute trash separation for all waste before it enters landfills, so that recyclables are separated out and processed, since obviously people are not very good at disposing of recyclables separately themselves, and 2) dig up old landfills and process the trash as in #1. Of course, there's also the problem of things like the garbage gyres in the oceans, and of course litter on the land. The latter is solvable I think through cultural changes. In first-world countries litter isn't that much of a problem any more; it became socially unacceptable to litter, just like it became socially unacceptable to smoke indoors.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- athenot 11y agoReprocessing trash for recyclables is not always possible due to contamination. For example, my trash company won't take pizza boxes in the recycling stream because they are often greazy. The grease in the cardboard not only affects the cardboard it's on, it affects the surrounding cardboard that might be in that recycling stream. I would imagine that mining trash for aluminium might be more feasible but the quantities would have to justify the operation.
- Grishnakh 11y agoI imagine there's a lot of somewhat valuable metals in trash: steel and copper come to mind immediately. Electronics are full of copper (though usually not in huge quantities, but if anyone throws away wire that's actually fairly valuable on the scrap market; PCBs can be processed to reclaim the copper and tin and lead), and there's all kinds of other stuff people throw away that's made of steel (including cans).
- sliverstorm 11y agoPaper tissues? Copious amounts of water? I just peel them with my hands and quickly rinse my fingers with a couple teaspoons of water... How do you peel oranges?